On the Move - Dungog NSW

Arts Upper Hunter Dungog workshop - 2009 April - Dungog NSW

Arts Upper Hunter invited the Hero Project to run a workshop titled ‘Portraits of Place’, to work with locals to create a film about Dungog. In their first film workshop together, 12 Dungog locals explored a seemingly quirky topic, yet controversial exposition of the hidden tensions in their town. Their film, On The Move, got selected for the renown Dungog International Film Festival and featured on ABC.

At first glance the country town of Dungog in NSW feels like any other quiet, small rural town. Driving down the main street, past the monument one would never suspect that the community is divided. The problem is the local icon in the middle of the main street. Is it a monument or an obelisk? A round about or a traffic hazard? And more importantly should it be moved?

Dungog locals explored how they could make a film that would portray their town and life AND do justice to all of their creative visions?! This resulted in several intense brainstorming sessions, teams conducting a series of interviews and a fabulous factory style editing suite as everyone crafted the final film. And finally it all revolved around the monument in the main street!

It is fantastic to see how the story evolved and everyone experimented with new art forms. Their project promptly attracted the interest of the local media, the Dungog Chronicle. The Arts Upper Hunter development officer was also keen to train up the 5 adult supporters, so they could keep producing their own films, with the aim to take part in the Dungog film festival as local artists… the final film screened during the Dungog Film Festival – so watch out, Bruce and Hugo, there’s home-grown competition!

Partners

Apple

Arts NSW

Arts SA Partnerships for Healthy Communities

Arts Upper Hunter Inc

Australia Council for the Arts

Country Womens Association

Dungog Shire Council

Document Your World at AIDC

Australian International Documentary Conference - 2007 February - Adelaide SA

The Hero Project team worked with 15 youth finalist from the national Document Your World competition, hosted by the Australian International Documentary Conference AIDC in February 2007.
The Hero Project mentored the youth teams to prepare their film proposals as a public pitch. This first ever youth-documentary competition saw entries from across Australia, vying for the change to pitch in front of a panel of commissioning editors from ABC and SBS, IDFA’s Director, the Australian Children’s TV Foundation and executives from the media industry.

The events MC was Steve Cannane, from Triple J’s Hack, judges included Amanda Duthie (ABC TV), Carl Kuddell and Jen Lyons-Reid (Tallstoreez), Bernadette O’Mahoney (ACTF), Aimee Knight, Warrick Burton (SBSi) and Magda Estetima (IDFA Amsterdam).

Pitch Introduction

Pitch 1 - LOL

Pitch 2 - Artists Not Aliens

Pitch 3 - The Oo in Pinnaroo

Pitch 4 - In Our Shows

Pitch 5 Legends of Quorn

Q&A + Thankyou

AIDC Podcasts

The 5 finalist teams from Whyalla, Quorn, Murray Bridge, Pinnaroo and Adelaide prepared a 5-minute verbal pitch and a 2-minute video trailer for their documentary proposals – in 2 days they prepared, wrote, test-pitched, shot and edited the most amazing public presentations – feedback from the panel and audience was that it was the best presentations at AIDC that year…

The participants delivered very compelling presentations. In front of over 100 experts and a high-caliber panel from ABC, SBS, Tallstoreez and ACTF, they held their own. Stories included: LoL: Cyberbullying, the Oo in Pinnaroo, Life in Quorn, Artists not Aliens and Nunga Media.

The winner was ‘LoL’, a documentary about cyberbullying; the team won a development purse of $5000 from ABC jtv, to develop a half-hour documentary proposal.
The runner-up was ‘Oo in Pinnaroo’; who were approached by ABC to produce a 10-part mini-series, mentored by the Hero Project.

The teams also produced a series of short clips during the conference for AIDC, interviewing documentary makers and broadcasters about film making and key points of the conference. The clips were shown on huge screens on the same day  they were shot. It was fabulous to see the 15 Document Your World heroes mingling with the pro-crowd and gleaning valuable intel.

Partners

ABC JTV

Apple

Arts SA Health Promotion through the Arts

Australian Childrens Television Foundation

Australian International Documentary Conference

Country Arts SA Regional Arts Fund